Intellectual efficiency of children with unilateral hearing loss

Objective: The aim of our study was to observe the consequences of unilateral hearing loss with regard to intellectual. functioning and development of children. Methods: The studies were conducted on the group of 64 children (42 boys and 22 girls) aged 6-16 years with left- or right-sided hearing loss using D. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). Results: Children with right-sided hearing loss had a limited range of concepts, lower capability of learning verbal material and logical reasoning, abstract thinking and classifying. Left-sided hearing loss caused deterioration of intellectual abilities within non-verbal intelligence. Such a children had poorer abilities for analyzing, synthesizing and visual. memory, worse spatial imagination and visual coordination. Conclusions: The examined children with unitateral. hearing loss achieved the intelligence quotient on the average level. in D. Wechster Intelligence Scale. The side of hearing toss has a significant influence on the development of individual intellectual functions. (C) 2006 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.